Chevy Ads Miss the Point on Ford’s Aluminum F-150

It’s not uncommon for automakers to produce television ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the cars being sold. Marketers are faced with diminishing attention spans, and need to attract a viewer at any cost. It’s how we end up with human-sized hamsters pitching the Kia Soul. But a new Chevrolet ad campaign is utterly stupid, but in a way that is more damaging.
When it comes to selling pickup trucks in the American market, the stakes are always high. The battle between the Silverado and F-150 resembles the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s at times. Marketers take desperate measures to turn heads. Perhaps that’s why we have been treated with this drivel:
PHOTOS: See images of the Chevrolet Silverado Black Ops Concept

As I said before, car ads sometimes have nothing to do with the car they are selling, but this is trying to do something a little more subversive. General Motors and Chevy are actually trying to make a point about its aluminum-bodied competitor, the Ford F-150, but with completely disassociated concepts. Then there’s this:

Ok great, a bunch of people off the street think a steel cage is safer! But what would have happened if they went for the aluminum cage? Would they have been brutally mauled? In the news business, we have a saying, “If it slays, it pays,” underscoring mankind’s morbid curiosity with carnage, but even I don’t think GM would have gone for a bear mauling to make an advertising claim.
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GM is being extra disingenuous on two fronts. The first is that the whole steel vs. aluminum argument that is being made has nothing to do with the science of the trucks that use them. Ford uses aluminum on most of its F-150. In most applications, the military grade aluminum components are just as strong as their steel counterparts, and are lighter.
Second is the hypocrisy of GM taking this line of attack. According to Automotive News, GM is set to use aluminum in parts of its own trucks possibly as early as 2018.
It’s not the first time GM has taken such a hypocritical tact. When it was first marketing the Chevy Volt, it coined the term “range anxiety” to position the gas-electric Volt against pure electric cars. And this was all while the automaker was likely in development of the electric-powered Spark EV and Bolt EV.
PHOTOS: See more images of the Chevrolet Bolt EV
Attack and comparison ads are a double-edged sword that every automaker has the option to unsheathe. But you open yourself up to criticism and being called out for disinformation when you try to stack your car against a rival in an obviously slanted comparison.
Chevrolet makes a lot of great cars, as well as a few duds. Rather than sinking to new depths of absurdity and mindless drivel, maybe focus on the positives of your own cars. Or don’t listen to us, and go back to waging a propaganda war against a type of metal that you plan on using in the next couple of years.
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